Ammonium chloride 350mg/5ml oral suspension
Requires a prescription from a doctor or prescriber
Ammonium chloride is an inorganic compound with the formula NH4Cl.
Safety information for pregnancy and breastfeeding
Breastfeeding
Always consult your doctor or midwife before taking any medicine during pregnancy or while breastfeeding. Source: DrugBank (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Official documents, adverse reaction reporting, and safety monitoring
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Official medicine documents
Yellow Card
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Drug safety updates
MHRA alerts for Ammonium chloride
Safety monitoring data
Yellow Card reports
The MHRA Yellow Card scheme collects reports of suspected side effects from healthcare professionals and patients. View the Drug Analysis Profile (iDAP) for real-world adverse reaction data.
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Suspected adverse reactions reported for Ammonium chloride
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Report a side effect
Submit a Yellow Card report to the MHRA
Data from the MHRA Yellow Card scheme. A reported reaction does not necessarily mean the medicine caused it. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
EudraVigilance
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) collects suspected adverse reaction reports from across the EU/EEA through the EudraVigilance system. Search for safety data on this medicine.
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Suspected adverse reactions reported for Ammonium chloride
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Learn about EU pharmacovigilance and safety monitoring
EudraVigilance data is published by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). A suspected adverse reaction is not necessarily caused by the medicine.
1 branded products available
Therapeutically similar medicines
Tablets & capsules
(1)Similarity is based on WHO Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification and on a factual NHS dm+d therapeutic-grouping code prefix. Source data: NHS dm+d via TRUD (OGL v3.0), WHO ATC/DDD Index.
NHS prescribing volume and spending trends
Check stock at pharmacies and supply information
Pharmacy stock checkers
Search for this medicine at major UK pharmacy chains. These links open the retailer's own website — results depend on their current online catalogue.
Supply & safety information
Official UK regulator monitoring and safety alerts
Pharmacy links redirect to the retailer's own search and do not represent real-time stock levels. Shortage and safety information sourced from MHRA drug safety updates (gov.uk, Crown Copyright under OGL v3.0).
Codes for healthcare professionals and prescribing systems
These codes are used by healthcare IT systems and prescribers to identify this medicine.
NHS UK identifiers
SNOMED CT and dm+d codes from NHS TRUD (Technology Reference data Update Distribution), licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Active and completed clinical studies from ClinicalTrials.gov
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Data accessed via ClinicalTrials.gov API v2. Trial information is provided for research purposes and does not constitute medical advice.
Academic studies and reviews for this medicine's active substance
Showing the 50 most relevant studies.
Reviews & meta-analyses: 3 · Randomised trials: 3 · 1950–2025
Showing the 50 most relevant studies, sorted by most relevant.
Yaoguang Rong, Xiaomeng Hou, Yue Hu, et al.
Nature Communications, 2017
Sun, Xiaowen, Bienayme, Hugues, Zhu, Jieping, et al.
2025
Dekhane, Mouloud, Bonne, Damien, Zhu, Jieping
2025
A. Abbott, G. Capper, D. Davies, et al.
Chemical communications, 2003
A. Abbott, D. Boothby, G. Capper, et al.
Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2004
Xiong Li, M. I. Dar, C. Yi, et al.
Nature chemistry, 2015
E. L. Wagner, D. F. Hornig
The Journal of Chemical Physics, 1950
A. Isquith, E. A. Abbott, P. A. Walters
Applied microbiology, 1972
Zhaoxiang Peng, Ling Wang, Lin Du, et al.
Carbohydrate Polymers, 2010
Xiaosen Li, Chungang Xu, Zhaoyang Chen, et al.
Energy, 2010
Sources: aggregated from Europe PMC (EMBL-EBI), OpenAlex, Crossref, PubMed and other open scholarly databases. Retracted articles are excluded. Study information is provided for research purposes and does not constitute medical advice.
Pharmacology and chemical data from DrugBank
Key facts
Drug status
Approved
Major interactions
None known
Half-life
Not available
Mechanism
Ammonium chloride increases acidity by increasing the amount of hydrogen ion concentrations.
Food interactions
None known
Human targets
None mapped
Data: DrugBank · CC BY-NC 4.0
Pharmacokinetics at a glance
Absorption
3–6 h
Half-life
Protein binding
Volume of distribution
Metabolism
Elimination
Clearance
Pharmacokinetic data: DrugBank · CC BY-NC 4.0
2. The ammonium ion (NH4+) in the body plays an important role in the maintenance of acid-base balance.
The kidney uses ammonium (NH4+) in place of sodium (Na+) to combine with fixed anions in maintaining acid-base balance, especially as a homeostatic compensatory mechanism in metabolic acidosis.
The therapeutic effects of Ammonium Chloride depend upon the ability of the kidney to utilize ammonia in the excretion of an excess of fixed anions and the conversion of ammonia to urea by the liver, thereby liberating hydrogen (H+) and chloride (Cl–) ions into the extracellular fluid.
Ammonium Chloride Injection, USP, after dilution in isotonic sodium chloride injection, may be indicated in the treatment of patients with:
(1) hypochloremic states and (2) metabolic alkalosis.
Known interactions with other medicines. Always consult a healthcare professional.
Showing 50 of 906 interactions
Overdosage of Ammonium Chloride has resulted in a serious degree of metabolic acidosis, disorientation, confusion and coma. If metabolic acidosis occur following overdosage, the administration of an alkalinizing solution such as sodium bicarbonate or sodium lactate will serve to correct the acidosis.
Patients administering Ammonium chloride should be watched to the signs of ammonia toxicity including (pallor, sweating, irregular breathing, bradycardia, cardiac arrhythmias, local and general twitching, tonic convulsions and coma).
It should be used with caution in patients with high total CO2 and buffer base secondary to primary respiratory acidosis.
Intravenous administration should be slow to avoid local irritation and toxic effects.
Ammonium chloride can be used as an expectorant due to its irritative action on the bronchial mucosa. This effect causes the production of respiratory tract fluid which in order facilitates the effective cough.
How the body processes this drug — absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination
ATC G04BA01
ATC B05XA04
Chemical identifiers
CAS, UNII, InChI Key and database cross-references
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Chemical identifiers
CAS, UNII, InChI Key and database cross-references
Linked compound data from DrugBank Open Data (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Ammonium chloride
DrugBank citations
If you use DrugBank data in your research, please cite:
- DrugBank 6.02024Recommended citationKnox C., Wilson M., Klinger C.M., et alDrugBank 6.0: the DrugBank Knowledgebase for 2024Nucleic Acids Res. 2024 Jan 552(D1):D1265-D1275
- DrugBank 5.02018Wishart D.S., Feunang Y.D., Guo A.C., et alDrugBank 5.0: a major update to the DrugBank database for 2018Nucleic Acids Res. 2017 Nov 846(D1):D1074-D1082
- DrugBank 4.02014Law V., Knox C., Djoumbou Y., et alDrugBank 4.0: shedding new light on drug metabolismNucleic Acids Res. 2014 Jan 142(1):D1091-7
- DrugBank 3.02011Knox C., Law V., Jewison T., et alDrugBank 3.0: a comprehensive resource for 'omics' research on drugsNucleic Acids Res. 2011 Jan39(Database issue):D1035-41
- DrugBank 2.02008Wishart D.S., Knox C., Guo A.C., et alDrugBank: a knowledgebase for drugs, drug actions and drug targets.Nucleic Acids Research2008 Jan36(Database issue):D901-6
- DrugBank 1.02006Wishart D.S., Knox C., Guo A.C., et alDrugBank: a comprehensive resource for in silico drug discovery and exploration.Nucleic Acids Research2006 Jan 134(Database issue):D668-72